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The paper presents an assessment of the opportunities for the Bulgarian economy and the Bulgarian business to move towards sustainable development under the concept of corporate social responsibility. On the part of CSR supporters, the concept in question is not just a channel for a transition to sustainability; they identify it with sustainable development. This paper is not intended to deny the concept of CSR, but to specify the limitations to CSR on the road to sustainability, on the one hand, and the defi cits related to CSR adoption in business management practice in Bulgaria. Based on a theoretical analysis within the system approach, the relationship between the two is interpreted: the concept of CSR and the concept of sustainable development. The main challenges to the process of CSR transformation into a means of transition to sustainability have been identifi ed. Results from a representative empirical study by other authors on CSR issues are also commented on.
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Growth is the most important feature in the functioning of all modern business organizations and economies. It is the result of rapidly changing elements of the local, national and international socio-economic environment. The strength and direction of their impact to a certain extent depends on the specifi cs of the subject of activity and the target orientation of the enterprises. It is this impact that brings elements of uncertainty and instability to business development. In the last few decades, comprehensive methodologies and principles have been developed for the implementation of innovation in governance aimed at standardising good and effective practices so that they can be quickly and easily applied to different types of Organizations. In this publication, an attempt is made to justify the construction of an innovation accelerator leading to increased business growth.
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The Bulgarian state is the largest owner of agriculturall and son theterritory of Shumen Province. The State Land Fund is effectively managed throught heright choice of different time frames of short, medium and long-term leases inorder to achieve anoptimalsolution. The results, such as abid price and anaveragerent price, are very important and the Income Amount from ownership and control of agricultural land sin the republic an budget is directly dependent up on them. The results of analyzing the allocation of state farmland for previous business years should be the basis for a decision-making and the follow-up tender procedures.
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Socially responsible investing (SRI) is a decision making process concerning the allocation of free financial resources, where the investor aims at maximization of profit and minimization of risk on one part, and includes the socio-ethical and environmental-ecological considerations on the other. We can find four types of motives, describing them as mobilizing forces to undertake SRI. The seare psychological and social, legal, economic and strategic, financial. Investors invest their funds in such investments by choosing the right investment strategy for them. We can find many different classifications relating to strategies and actions within the framework of SRI. The most important classifications of the SRI strategy were prepared by Global Sustainable Investment Review and Eurosif. These two organizations prepare also reports on SRI in the world and in Europe. The European market has the largest share in the global SRI market but the most dynamically developing market is Japan.
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Nowadays, shareholders would like to receive more information about companies’ activities. They would like to know how the company treats their local community, how their activities influencethe environment or even if the company’s activities are harmful for society. This information is needed and has to do with costs for society. Tracking these costs, called external costs, more precisely seems to be becoming more important in accounting and is starting to become a new research area.The need for treating external costs like a part of research in accounting is indicated by a trend of the accounting of social responsibility, the theory of legitimacy in accounting, the concept of full cost accounting and the directive on disclosure of non-financial information. The use of the environment isn’t free of charge for companies. According to national laws, companies are obligated to pay environmental fees or taxes when using the environment. Existing fees and taxes for using the environment don’t resolve the problems of measuring and evaluating the external costs in companies. What is important to note is that external costs are connected with using goods such as air, soil, water,silence or the aesthetics of the surroundings. They all are non-marketable goods; they don’t have prices on the market. Therefore, one of the non-market valuation methods could be used to evaluate them. One of the biggest problems for accounting in the future will be measuring the volume of using these goods or measuring the size of reduction in the quality of public goods suffered and assigning the decrease to particular companies.
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Year by year, research and development works constitute an increasingly important element of the functioning of enterprises. Appropriate recording of expenditure and settlement of their effects requires (above all) determination of the actual stage of works. Consequently, there is a distinction between research and development works. Another aspect that determines the principles of recognizing expenditure in the accounting books is to determine whether the developed product/technology belongs to the area economically developed by the unit or to the unrecognized area. The adequate determination will help to place expenses either in the sphere of activity and basic unit orin the sphere of other operating activity. Financial reporting for intangible assets is perhaps one of the most difficult and most controversial topics of financial reporting. In this article it is compared three concepts of financial reporting for R&D costs: IFRS approach, Czech approach for non-profit organizations and Czech approach for profit organizations.
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Purpose: Migration is acomplex issue, with many facets that need to be weighed. Five years after the 2015 refugee crisis and the European Agenda on Migration, the EU still lacks a common migration and asylum policy. The aim of the chapter is to discuss the future of the migration and asylum policy in the European Union. Design/methodology/approach: The chapter analyzes the current migration situation in Europe, the impact of Covid-19 on migratory flows in Europe, challenges faced by the EU, and legislative initiatives proposed under the New Pact on Migration and Asylum. The text indicates key challenges related to migration faced by the European Union and provides an overview of the legislative proposals that seek to address the identified gaps. Findings: Covid-19 pandemic highlighted the need for the EU to be prepared to address situations of force majeure and broader crises, which impact migration and asylum management systems. The Pact on Migration and Asylum sets out the Commission’s new approach to migration, addresses border management, and ensures more coherence to integrate the internal and external dimensions of migration policies. Originality and value: The chapter attempts to contribute to the literature on international migration by delivering analysis results of Covid-19 pandemic’s impact on the migration flows in Europe and the analysis of EU’s new approach to migration and asylum policy.
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Purpose: The authors aim to briefly present the adoption of Industry 4.0 technologies among Polish companies in the realm of the VUCA world. These solutions may work as measures that increase the resilience of companies against the Covid-19 crisis and support the recovery in “the new normal” reality. Design/methodology/approach: The paper combines literature studies with an empirical investigation in the form of computer-assisted telephone interviews conducted among 400 Polish manufacturing companies. Findings: Polish industrial manufacturing firms lag in implementing I4.0 technologies compared to their Western European counterparts. Research limitations/implications: The empirical part of the study was conducted among Polish companies. Similar studies among firms from other CEE countries will be necessary to conclude about this part of the world’s readiness to adopt 4.0 technologies. Practical implications: The pandemic era and increasing I4.0 adoption pose particular tasks for companies. They should revise their contractual arrangements with IT service providers and focus on data privacy and security topics, but also industry-specific regulations. Triggered by the Covid-19 crisis, these actions may contribute to developing companies’ comprehensive digital strategy in the “new normal” reality. Originality and value: The chapter contributes to the discussion on the readiness of companies and economies to adopt the Industry 4.0 technologies. It also provides the level of the adoption of these solutions in the context of a post-transition economy.
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Purpose: The aim of the chapter is to present the competence patterns before and during the economic crisis and to determine the importance of individual competences for doing business in a turbulent environment. In many sectors of the economy, global changes triggered by Covid-19 called into question the use of existing sets of competences needed to run businesses effectively in supply chains. The continuous improvement of supply chains – or lean and agile management – will no longer work in current conditions. Faced with an increasingly unstable economy triggered by a global pandemic, many economists ask whether the existing competence patterns in companies or supply chains remain appropriate and proper for the current economic situation. Design/methodology/approach: In 2017, a survey was conducted among selected experts in the pharmaceutical sector. The same questionnaire distributed in September 2020, during the Covid-19 pandemic. The experts were highly qualified managers employed in transnational companies. The 10 respondents were asked to indicate selected competencies. The choice of the pharmaceutical sector was motivated primarily by its specific characteristics as it is particularly important not only economically but also socially, by providing life-saving medicines. Findings: Technical competences are becoming the necessary ones. This is due to the need for self-sufficiency in lockdown situations, when it is difficult to find external employees and the possibility of outsourcing skills. In the case of managerial competence, it is clear that creativity and entrepreneurial thinking have increased in importance. When analyzing social competences, what comes to the fore is diversity of intercultural skills: foreign language skills, the ability to compromise, the ability to transfer knowledge, and finally, the ability to adapt to change. Originality and value: This chapter answer what competences seem necessary for future managers in the pharmaceutical industry in a turbulent environment, which is crucial for research and teaching centers who seek to educate future managers at the highest level of specific competences and skills. Due to the dynamic development of the industry, the text identifies the needs in the areas of technical, managerial, and social skills.
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Purpose: The aim of the chapter is to compare the declarations of local and international companies regarding the maintenance of sustainable development initiatives during acrisis. Design/methodology/approach: The article presents the results of a survey conducted in September 2020 on a sample of 500 enterprises located in Poland. Respondents were asked to declare if they will maintain or abandon sustainable development initiatives in a crisis situation. The examples presented a pandemic similar to the one caused by Covid-19, an economic crisis, or a significant decrease in company revenues. Findings: The research showed that the largest group of companies in acrisis situation will completely abandon their initiatives in the field of sustainable development. Another group will give up those initiatives that generate the highest cost. There are some small differences in responses of local and international companies. Companies with foreign entities in the ownership structure seems less likely to give up all initiatives in the field of sustainable development. International companies more often than local companies declare that they do not know which initiatives they will abandon and which will they keep. Research limitations/implications: Factors other than international involvement (e.g. company size, strategic approach to sustainable development) may have a decisive impact on decisions regarding the maintenance of sustainable development initiatives in acrisis. Originality and value: The chapter illustrates the approach to sustainable development by companies classified into various categories: local and international.
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The aim of this chapter is to describe various determinants of sustainable development in the contemporary world, including those most important, such as globalisation, climate change, poverty versus unlimited consumption as well as limited exhausted access to resources—with regard to the goals of sustainable development. The other objective is to give the reader essential resources covering the topic from various viewpoints and a starting point for discussions about sustainability.
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The aim of the current chapter is to present the essence of sustainable consumption andits basic rules: Reduce-Reuse-Recycle. Minimalism and sharing economy were presented as the manifestation of the Reduce rule. Reuse requires distribution systems which will give access to preowned products (in a broader scope), thus, they will provide products with a second life. This may be provided by alternative retail formats which are oriented towards the sale of second-hand products. Some of these formats, especially online applications, are becoming quite popular—their number, as well as the amount of their customers is rapidly growing. Also, traditional mainstream retailers have become involved in second-hand product sales.
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The aim of the chapter is to explain how to incorporate Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) into corporate strategy in order to increase the competitive advantage of a company in thelong-run. The questions how to set a mission, vision and objectives to prepare annual reports in the field of sustainability will be discussed. Furthermore, motives as to why companies have to consider local and global perspective when setting SD objectives and the problem of conflicts in SD goals will be determined.
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Most of empirical literature on participation in and choice of recycling at the household level has been focused on factors determining the direct cost for households engaging in recycling efforts (Czajkowski, Kądziela, & Hanley 2012; Huhtala, 2010, Jenkins, Martinez, Palmer, & Podolsky,2003). Researchers noticed mixed findings in the literature on the significance of waste collection fees for recycling efforts. There is also a question as whether household recycling efforts represent a social cost, which should be taken into account in cost-benefit analyses of alternative waste treatment systems. Some argue that it should not be calculated, since recycling efforts are, to a large extent, voluntary. But on the other hand, households devote time to segregation, which is, in fact, an alternative cost (Bruvoll & Nyborg, 2002). One of the barriers of effective segregation seems to be a low level of awareness on recycling and segregation issues among households. That was also noticed in research conducted by Omran, Mahmood, Abdul Aziz and Robinson (2009). The aim of this case study is to recognise why citizens’ knowledge on waste segregation rules is not sufficient enough. Despite research results confirming rather limited consumer skills related to the subject, efficient methods to make people increase their awareness of what correct selective waste collection is, seem to remain still undiscovered. The students’ task is both to identify why mistakes in waste segregation are made, as well as to propose ways of helping citizens avoid them.
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Since 2020 the modern world has been witnessing a complex crisis, which is essentially a medical crisis (the COVID-19 pandemic) within a structural economic crisis. In addition to the current nexus of risk stressors, such as anthropogenic climate crisis, biodiversity loss, financialization and income inequality, all global and cross-cutting by their very nature, in the last period biorisk has been growing dramatically. The COVID-19 pandemic is a devastating and tragic moment which is rapidly becoming a matter of primary public concern. Social distancing, as the most effective anti-pandemic measure, has pushed the economy into sleep mode. Hibernation provokes a truly systemic economic downturn. The current crisis is particularly deepening structural imbalances of the neoliberal model of capitalism. Core policies responses, such as liquidity infusion and fiscal stimulus, are massive and permanent. Increasing moral hazard and irrational exuberance, such policies are destroying capital markets,as a brain of the market economy. But every crisis is also a chance to change. By tackling the neoliberal capitalism’ fault lines in a more effective way, it may actually accelerate the pace to the future we had in mind. A quick restart (or recovery) of the economy and a later rebound require systemic and concerted action in order to mitigate the negative effects of both medical and economic crisis. In managing a complex crisis such as this one, guided by the vision o fa sustainable, inclusive and prosperous economy, governments all around the world should take radical reform steps. It means, at least, two things at once. First, dealing with the pandemic as a macroeconomic variable. Second, implementing core economic policies (monetary and fiscal) in a structural way. To do so, the transition from shareholder capitalism to stakeholder capitalism is imminent. An emerging system will combine two institutional choices,the “visible hand” of state (impact investments based on structural or industrial policies)and the “invisible hand” of market forces. It’s time to give the government a stronger voice in the economy. To create value instead of redistributing value, the major part of impact investments will be in circular and regenerative economy, health care, infrastructure (physical and conceptual), science, and education. The objective of this paper is twofold. First, to fill the present conceptual vacuum created by the neoliberal doctrine economics rules with the aim of identifying key components of Serbia’s economy revival based on its macroeconomic specifics and catalytic impact of new economics rules during and after the COVID-19 pandemic.Second, to highlight the relevance of key components of stakeholder capitalism, including the regenerative and circular model of growth and heterodox economic policy platform for the Great Reset, or recovery and rebound respectively.
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The virus has impacted the economy through the following key channels: containment measures,and the supply and demand side problems caused by the disease. Lockdowns, cessation of certain services and public life, problems in organizing work-processes, problems in logistics and value chains at large, increased uncertainty, increased unemployment, and many others caused a simultaneous crunch on both the supply and the demand side of the economy.As a result of the simultaneous shock to both sides, the impact has been very strong, causing an endogenous spiral and resulting in a much higher overall impact than initially expected.The purpose of this paper is to present the impact of the virus-related crisis on the economies,with the focus on the European economy and Slovenia, relying on most recent available statistical resources. First, a brief theoretical background is provided, explaining more in detail how the virus impacted the economy. This is followed by an overview of the macroeconomic data, including a reflection to the financial and economic crisis 10 years ago. A sectoral perspective is provided next. The paper concludes with a selection of forecasts for the future.While the crisis has had a negative impact on the overall macroeconomic performance, significant sectoral as well as cross-country differences can be observed. Forecasting the future and overall impacts of the virus is at the moment very risky, however, the forecasts are unanimous in the evaluation that the crisis in 2020 will be significantly deeper than the crisis in 2009. Future effects and development of the crisis depend on a number of factors(1) the duration and type of restrictions, (2) government aid programs, (3) consumer behaviour), (4)timing of medication/vaccine, (5) unemployment rates, and (6) impact on household budgets.Primarily, it is important to understand that these factors could have very different impacts on different industries and countries.
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The introduction of new customs duties represents a serious challenge for the organisation of global value chains and current patterns of the international division of production Such measures have further weakened the already fragile fundamentals of the post 2nd World War Bretton-Wood’s multilateral system. In the last couple of years, the appeal for a reorganization of the World Trade Organization has intensified. In this paper, we aim to study trade implications of the US-China trade war from a perspective of supply chain trade and the organisation of global value chains (GVCs). We first present the development of the tariff rates in the US and China over the course of the trade war and sum up early evidence on the US-China trade war effects from stock price volatility. Next, we discuss the differences in tariff impacts on traditional and supply chain trade. We continue with characterizing the US and China’s GVC position and resulting pressure for supply chain restructuring. Finally, we look at trade effects for the EU in different categories of goods. The involvement of the EU-28in GVCs is characterized in general with a more upstream position in trade with China, while backward participation strongly prevails in the EU-28 trade with the US, with notable differences among EU member states. Trade data for the two most recent years shows a certain degree of EU trade reorientation towards both the US and China, where an increased share of exports to the US has been driven by intermediate goods, while in exports to China consumer goods showed the strongest growth. The evidence on the adjustment of GVCs in wake of the US-China trade war suggests that an increase in trade costs has important implications for the organisation and location of GVC activities. We may expect that such a trend will be further strengthened in response to the current COVID-19 pandemic situation. Trade is likely to fall more steeply in sectors characterized by complex value chain linkages. Restructuring,shortening, and reorientation of GVCs will, expectedly, be even more pronounced since the COVID-19 crisis involves lockdown and social distancing causing major labour supply shocks and GVC disruptions.
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The current COVID-19 pandemic, as a powerful information weapon, is well on its way, if not already, to take the character of a religion. According to us, it is a false religion, because everything has become very pragmatic and prosaic. If the matter ended like that, it would be a kind of “biblical flood”. It is possible that the “supreme” has decided to exterminate a part of the world’s population by flood, certainly not all, but the question is, why is it so complicated and why does everything take so long. Has any “new” Noah already prepared the raft, and how much space is there on it! The objective question is, for how long, where,and to whom does this “rotten” humanism, which manifests itself in a couple of free “needle”stings, work? State donation!On the other hand, the uncertainty that comes with the time of an increasingly intense digital future produces different interpretations of where we are and what will happen. And while usually only a small number in an organization can clearly recognize a “burning platform”,for others it is, at best, just a little bit of smoke on the horizon.In this paper, given the many unknowns related to the corona crisis, we discuss more than we actually offer solutions on how to start the development spiral of the economies of less developed countries. As can be seen from the title of the paper, our starting position indicates that it is possible, but on a new paradigmatic basis, to trigger the momentum of digital transformation.The initial question is whether there is any hope that these economies, squeezed by the “yoke” of globalization, will turn the accumulated crisis into a real opportunity for their own economic revival that will deliberately, continuously and realistically increase GDP, living and working standards. For now, apparently, we have not predicted that the old Chinese curse “may we live in interesting times” will reach us.
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The coronavirus pandemic represents a major shock for the global and EU economies and is expected to bear unpredictable, yet severe and long-lasting socio-economic consequences.Health crises provoked economic contagion and is now, it seems, spreading as fast as the disease itself. During the crisis, national economies found themselves in a free fall with different velocities. In general, it is expected that COVID-19 will take much higher toll in terms of GDP if compared with three main crises in past 100 years: the great depression in 1930s, first OPEC oil crises in the 1970s and the recent financial crises in the period of 2007-2009. Global GDP is projected to contract by about 4.4 percent in 2020, which is a sharper downturn than during the Global Financial Crisis in 2008-2009. It is then expected to rebound by 5.2percent in 2021, implying that global output should recover above it 2019 level but remain well below the level projected in the autumn 2019 forecast.The health and economic crisis has led to a significant job crisis that will increase the inequality and widen the gap in social structures. This paper presents the role of business and societal resilience. At the policy and societal level, the COVID-19 crisis has brought about a will to question the current functioning of economy and society with citizens’ initiatives. The economic system supporting the increasing share of precariat workers due to gig economy and deterioration of workers’ bargaining power, eroding the public institutions by austerity measures and siphoning value out of the economy by rewarding shareholders through stockbuyback schemes, rather than supporting investment in research and development, wages,and worker training, has proven to be ineffective to combat serious exogenous shocks. The current crisis calls for a new policy approach, based on theoretical foundations of (i) the developmental state, (ii) legal institutionalism and (iii) the entrepreneurial state.During the recent COVID crisis the switch in policy paradigm will improve the resilience of the companies in order to be capable of managing future disruptions and handling the most important challenges we need to solve like climate change, inequalities or financial crises, by reaping the synergies between collaboration, digitalization and sustainability.
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